They've been calling it "Pokemon with Guns", and while that's not wholly inaccurate, it doesn't quite capture the essence of what's going on here. There's also the automation (slavery) where you can assign creatures to your base to perform assorted tasks, and potentially overwork them to the point of injury.

It's more of a survival crafting game than a monster catching game, though the balance is pretty close to 50-50.

It's got an incredibly strong start, but around level 30 you run into two very big pain points:

1. Ore. Ore is heavy and in extremely high demand all the time, because ore makes ingots, and everything above basic wood and stone gear demands ingots. Even if you build a secondary base whose entire purpose is to have spare creatures slaving away in the mines, that still won't be enough AND it'll be a pain to carry back to your main base.

2. Capture Chance. Once you start looking at creatures above level 10, the basic blue Palsphere suffers a severe drop in effectiveness. Creatures above level 25 can be immune to them entirely. And Palspheres above the basic blue grade require ingots to make so... see above. Capturing more powerful creatures quickly becomes an endurance game where you reduce a 5000+ health creature to less than 20, then sling 40-50 expensive high-grade Palspheres at it (each of which costs 2-3 ingots to make).

What the game needs is a mechanic that cumulatively increases your capture chance if you keep hitting the same monster with consecutive spheres.
And to reduce the weight of ore.

There are a number of weird controversies surrounding the game. Is it an asset flip? Was it designed by AI? Will Nintendo sue for plagiarism?

While it definitely wasn't AI and doesn't actually infringe on Nintendo, it may be true that a lot of the landscape assets are store-bought. But it really shouldn't matter, because the world is still fairly well-designed. I keep having to stop and just look around at where I am, taking in the scenery.

And the creatures themselves are definitely original, and EXTREMELY well-animated.

They've been calling it "Pokemon with Guns", and while that's not wholly inaccurate, it doesn't quite capture the essence of what's going on here. There's also the automation (slavery) where you can assign creatures to your base to perform assorted tasks, and potentially overwork them to the point of injury. It's more of a survival crafting game than a monster catching game, though the balance is pretty close to 50-50. It's got an incredibly strong start, but around level 30 you run into two very big pain points: 1. Ore. Ore is heavy and in extremely high demand all the time, because ore makes ingots, and everything above basic wood and stone gear demands ingots. Even if you build a secondary base whose entire purpose is to have spare creatures slaving away in the mines, that still won't be enough AND it'll be a pain to carry back to your main base. 2. Capture Chance. Once you start looking at creatures above level 10, the basic blue Palsphere suffers a severe drop in effectiveness. Creatures above level 25 can be immune to them entirely. And Palspheres above the basic blue grade require ingots to make so... see above. Capturing more powerful creatures quickly becomes an endurance game where you reduce a 5000+ health creature to less than 20, then sling 40-50 expensive high-grade Palspheres at it (each of which costs 2-3 ingots to make). What the game needs is a mechanic that cumulatively increases your capture chance if you keep hitting the same monster with consecutive spheres. And to reduce the weight of ore. There are a number of weird controversies surrounding the game. Is it an asset flip? Was it designed by AI? Will Nintendo sue for plagiarism? While it definitely wasn't AI and doesn't actually infringe on Nintendo, it may be true that a lot of the landscape assets are store-bought. But it really shouldn't matter, because the world is still fairly well-designed. I keep having to stop and just look around at where I am, taking in the scenery. And the creatures themselves are definitely original, and EXTREMELY well-animated.